Discussion Guide for Dead Poet s Society ACSI PFO

Transcription

1 Discussion Guide for Dead Poet s Society ACSI PFO Professional Strategies Session 1/2 Tim Shuman, MEd Regional Director for International Schools, ACSI Global Scenes from the movie Dead Poets Society comprise a valuable tool that we use to help kickstart our thinking about what is good education. 1) Opening Ceremony 00:00-05:30 a) What are the "four pillars" at Welton? If you were to design and start a Christian school what would your four pillars be (aka Core Values)? b) According to the opening address given by the Headmaster, Mr. Nolan, what is most valued at Welton? According to Nolan, why do parents put their boys at Welton? Of what would a quality international Christian school boast? c) Traditions like an Opening Ceremony (graduation, etc.) can contain powerful imagery, symbols, and messages that tell us what a school values most. Name some of the imagery that Welton employed. What kinds of traditions did your last school employ that transferred the values of that school? 2) Neal s room - after the opening ceremony 05:55-10:00 a) In this scene, the boys have a different take on the four pillars. The school you will soon join will have its pillars too - both named and unnamed. What might some unnamed pillars be in a school. i.e. values that exist in the culture of the school but that are unrecognized. Example: we might say we are a school of excellence but the reality is often mediocrity. Or maybe the school says it emphasizes academics, but sports takes a dominate role. ACSI PFO-1

2 b) What are the boys obsessing about in Neal s room almost immediately? Is this a good thing? c) Mr. Perry enters the room and informs his son in front of the boys about a change he made to Neal s schedule: removing him from the yearbook team. When Neal protests Mr. Perry chastises his son for questioning him in public. (Note the hypocrisy in this scene.) What should have been done? d) The movie takes place in Do you think this kind of interaction (parent to child) might still exist today? Could it take place at one of our international Christian schools? Are there some ethnic cultures that are more prone to this kind of parental control - which ones? e) Is it our place as educators or caregivers to correct a parent s goals for their children? How would you counsel the father? More likely, how would you counsel Neal if he was your student? ACSI PFO-2

3 3) First day in Mr. Keating classroom 10:22-17:01 a) Mr. K is a new teacher at Welton. How are the other teachers portrayed before we get to Mr. K s classroom? How is he different from his teaching colleagues? b) What did he do really well on the first day of class? c) What fire is he igniting? What is he saying about what is to come this year? d) Carpe Diem. Make your lives extraordinary. This is a powerful challenge. What makes it so appealing? Is there any problems with his challenge? e) At the trophy case, Mr. K told the boys we are all food for worms, how does this accompany the "seize the day" the message? How are these two connected? f) How could a Christian teacher better unpack what it means to "make your lives extraordinary". g) Can you provide present day stories of eternity-minded Christians who lead extraordinary lives? (And point 9.c.) h) How will you start your first day of class? What aspect of you will you want your students to know about you as a teacher of (name the subject matter). Do you have a similar passion about the subject(s) you will teach this year? What if you don t?!?!? ACSI PFO-3

4 4) First instructional day in Keating's classroom 21:00-26:50 a) Mr. K has a student read aloud the introduction to the literature textbook. b) Did J. Evans Pritchard PhD, have it all wrong? Could that section have proven useful? c) What was your reaction to the order to rip out the introductory pages? Which one of the boys are you most like: the one who hesitates greatly, or the one who rips it out with glee? d) Mr. K says, "This is a battle, a war! And the casualties could be your hearts and souls. In my class you will learn to think for yourselves again. You will learn to savor words and language. No matter what anybody tells you, words and ideas can change the world. [...] I have a secret for you. We don't read and write poetry because it's cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits, and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for. [...] What good amid these, O me, O life? Answer. That you are here. That life exists, and identity; That the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. What will your verse be?" e) What is the message? What is Mr. K. calling his students to do? ACSI PFO-4

5 f) Sometimes even Christian educators can get formulaic and forget about poetry, beauty, romance, love. How can lines like these and the Carpe Diem challenge be redeemed in the Christian classroom? g) Mr. K says this is a battle, a war. What battle is he fighting? (By the way, did you catch the tune Mr. K is whistling?* What is the significance of this?) What battle are we fighting in the Christian school? h) Also, have you heard Mr. K s speech somewhere else recently?** 5) Interaction with a colleague at supper. 26:50-28:05 a) Have you ever run into a fellow faculty member that has become cynical (or in this case, a "realist")? What does cynicism look like? Could this happen in a Christian school? b) How do you keep from losing your love for students and for teaching? What should you do if you do? What if you work with a colleague like this in your school? 6) The boys ask Mr. K about the Dead Poets Society (DPS) 28:05-31:19 a) After looking at an old yearbook, Mr. K explains the origins of the Dead Poets Society. He explains that the DPS was dedicated to sucking the marrow out of life. "We were romantics. We didn't just read poetry, we let it drip from our tongues like honey. Spirits soared, women swooned, and gods were created, gentlemen. Not a bad way to spend an evening, eh?" ACSI PFO-5

6 b) When first asked about the DPS, Mr. K admitted, This present administration would not look favourably upon it and then asks them to keep a secret. (Red Flag?) What should he have shared with the boys and didn t? c) Note that in the movie, the book, Five Centuries of Verse simply appears on Neal's desk! You almost miss it if you don t pay attention. Who put the book there? What was the purpose of this? 33:40. 7) Mr. K's teaching methods. 50:28-52:06, 53:41-59:00 and 1:03:39-1:05:55 a) List the really great things Mr. K did as a teacher. b) What creativity will you bring to your classroom? c) To get students to think outside of the box, does the teacher need to be out there too? How far? d) There is a book called "Walking with God in the Classroom" (Harro Van Brummelen), considering just the title alone what must a Christian teacher never forget? e) What about Todd s shyness? Some students are outgoing and bold, while others are naturally shy and prefer not to stand out in a group. What is the appropriate way to help all students learn and grow - and maybe take risks? ACSI PFO-6

7 f) Have you thought about how certain national cultures might not respond well to Mr. K s methods? g) What about the place of Mr. K's banter with kids, mocking of student's names, and his "playful" (or otherwise) teasing of Todd? Is this appropriate? h) During the scene where Todd is "forced" to come up with a poem in front of his peers... what if Todd had been unable to produce a poem in that moment, what then? i) Do teachers have an obligation to do anything it takes to pull the best from each student? Are there any boundaries? What are they? What kinds of things must a Christian teacher keep in mind? j) What does it mean to be a popular teacher? Is this something you value? 8) Scene with Nolan and Keating talking about Mr. K s unusual methods. 1:18:36-1:20:03 a) What are the two purposes of education presented here? Is either one 100% correct? What might a similar conversation look like in the Christian school? b) Can you identify Mr. Nolan s philosophy/pedagogy? What was most positive? Most negative? c) Can you identify Mr. K s philosophy/pedagogy? What was most positive? Most negative? ACSI PFO-7

8 d) Are either of these two educational philosophies more Christian? e) What should a teacher do if they find their philosophy not lining up with the philosophy of the school/administration? 9) Without watching the rest of the in between scenes... a) The Carpe Deim challenge (sucking the marrow out of life) pushed the boys to restart the Dead Poets Society, sneak out at night on a regular basis, nearly get Charlie expelled, Knox to chase after the girl, Neal to deceive his father and be in the town play, Todd to stand on his desk and say goodbye to Mr. K. (And, of course, leads to Neal s suicide.) Was it all worth it? b) Keeping all of the passion intact, how would you rewrite the script? How should the story end in the Christian school context? c) Can you name some examples of how you ve seen a Christian (maybe one of your students) make her/his life extraordinary? 10) 2:00:08-2:05:28 Final scene - Mr. Nolan takes over Mr. K s class. a) What would a school today need to do following a tragedy like the one they just experienced? What would restoration look like? What elements need to be place so that students can get back to their learning? How would you handle your first post-crisis class? (This happens more than you think and is incredibly important!) ACSI PFO-8

9 b) Mr. Nolan attempts to restore order. How does the movie portray him? Was it fair? c) Given the creativity of the departing teacher and the emotional stress everyone was under, could any teacher have done a decent job subbing in for the beloved teacher? What would have been a better approach in this circumstance? d) Discuss the transformation of Todd Anderson from the beginning of the movie to the last scene. e) Todd was brave for saying goodbye to Mr. K. in the one and only final moment he had. Discuss the importance of goodbyes in the international school community. *The War of 1812 Overture. An overture written in 1880 by Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky to commemorate Russia's defense of its motherland against Napoleon's invading Grande Armee in **2015 Apple ipad Commercial featuring the very same speech. Interesting notes about Samuel Pickering - the basis for the John Keating character. In 1989 Pickering reluctantly became something of a celebrity with the release of the movie Dead Poets Society. The year before attending graduate school in Cambridge, Pickering had taught the movie's screenwriter, Tom Schulman, at Montgomery Bell Academy in Nashville. Schulman based the character of Professor John Keating, played by Robin Williams, on Pickering, who remembers "standing on desks and in waste cans" and teaching from outside the window. But, he writes in "Celebrity," "I did such things not so much to awaken students as entertain myself." The movie's publicity and the subsequent demand for his philosophies on education threw him. He writes: "The life I had shaped and the little things I achieved seemed lost. Instead of being the books I wrote or the family I cherished, I was a creature of publicity... fathered by a newspaper and nurtured by an ego." Pickering has spent the last decade trying to distance himself from the publicity generated by that movie From an interview with Sam Pickering. ACSI PFO-9

10 Samuel Pickering has eschewed publicity raised by the film and has since regarded the unorthodoxy of his classroom behavior as more goalless than that depicted in Dead Poets Society, in which unorthodoxy is employed deliberately as a way to preach the values of nonconformity and carpe diem. Instead, Pickering has commented that "I did such things not so much to awaken students as to entertain myself." Pickering has often considered his teaching style purely purposeless and impulsive, and he criticizes those who have subsequently asked him about his philosophy on education, responding that people, regarding such large social questions, have trouble with "the realization that mostly it's all meaningless. I don't know why people want answers." ACSI PFO-10